What’s The Difference Between Veal And Beef?

What is Veal?

It is meat of young calves, male or female, even though most of the supply of veal in Australia does come from male calves. Generally, these calves are not used for breeding. The price of veal is higher as compared to beef too, mainly because it is tastier and more exotic.

The age of a calf is usually between 16 and 18 weeks when it is slaughtered, and it weighs around 450 pounds.

What is Beef?

Beef is a generic name that refers to meat. In particular, it refers to the meat from adult cows and bulls. So if a farmer lets calves survive long enough to become adults before slaughtering them, their meat becomes beef.

What’s the Difference Between Veal and Beef?

As you can see, the basic definitions and difference are quite elementary. But there are a few more differences we can talk about.

Beef is a little hard to chew or more chewy. It takes a longer time to get completely chew beef, and bring it to a state where it can make its way down the throat to the stomach easily. You have to understand, that beef hardens as the cow grows older. The meat becomes tougher. On the contrary, veal is very soft to chew. This is the main reason why veal is more expensive, and thought of as more exotic.

Beef appears darker to be in colour and gets darker with the age of cow. Veal, on the other hand, has a tender pink appearance.

Beef has lower cholesterol levels compared to veal. Due to this, veal is usually not consumed by people with cholesterol or cardiac problems.

If you have toothache, beef will worsen it. In fact, it is almost impossible to eat beef with tooth trouble due to its immense toughness. Though veal is also not recommended, it can be eaten since it is softer. But it’s best to stay away from both.

Beef has less caloric value than veal. If you are on a weight loss mission, you might need to skip it or control the portion on your plate. As mentioned before, veal has slightly more fat to protein ratio.

Beef has a variety of meat cuts, including the ever-popular T-bone steak. That is not the case of veal.

Beef is very dry and more suitable for dishes where it is boiled. Veal is often too juicy, which makes it perfect meat for BBQs.

At the end of the day, veal and beef are two meat options that both have their strong points. Which one you prefer, is down to choice. Many prefer beef steaks due to their chewy texture, while others like the flavour that a veal steak brings to the table. If you want to know delicious veal recipes, we got them for you. You can see scrumptious veal recipe suggestions here.